Inching Closer to Center
by donutsweeper
Summary: Riggs wasn't sure how or when it happened, but he seemed to have found a place in the Murtaugh family.


The screen door slammed loud enough to wake the dead, let alone Riggs who'd been semi-napping on the lounge chair despite it being the middle of the afternoon. Startled, he flailed a little in surprise and must have made some kind of noise because the next thing he knew Riana was throwing herself into the neighboring chair with a half-hearted apology of, "Sorry, Riggs, I didn't know anyone was out here."

"It's your house, Riana, if you want to slam the door you go right ahead." Flicking his sunglasses down he regarded her for a moment. She looked kind of rough, holding herself all tense and biting her bottom lip. "You okay?"

"What is it with all these questions! Ugh. Why does everyone keep asking me that? I'm fine, just _fine!_ " she added with a shout over her shoulder.

"Uh-huh…." Riggs didn't comment on that little barb since it didn't seem like it was directed at him. His suspicions were confirmed practically the next second when he heard a loud huff come from from the other side of the door followed by the sound of someone walking away while muttering to themselves. "So you didn't just have an argument with your mom about something?"

"You heard that, huh?"

"Can't say that I did to be honest, but unless your dad's started wearing high heels he's not the one who nearly followed you out here." Trying to lighten the mood he added, "Not unless Harper's old enough for those, she isn't, is she? Or do you gotta wait until you're potty trained to start walking in fancy shoes?"

"Harper hates having anything on her feet. She doesn't even like socks."

"Barefoot all the way, baby! Smart. I always knew I liked that kid." That got a little twitch of a smile out of Riana and her posture relaxed a little.

They sat there quietly for a few minutes before Riggs offered a hesitant, "So, you want to talk about it?"

Riana's "No," was immediate. Not quite shouted, but said with what Riggs thought of as Trish's 'I am a lawyer and I am unimpressed with you' tone. It was a little surprising hearing it come out of the mouth of the younger generation, but he was impressed how well she managed it. And besides, not talking about things suited him just fine- what the hell did he know about teenage girls and their problems anyway?

"Want to just sit out here and _not_ talk about it then?"

"Really?" Tilting her head she looked at him for a moment before nodding. Apparently she approved of what she saw. "Yeah, that sounds nice. Thanks, Riggs."

The silence hung between them for a while, but it felt comfortable instead of awkward. Riggs went back to not-quite-sleeping while Riana pulled out her phone, opened up a game and began jabbing away at it.

"There's this thing that happened at school," Riana said eventually, talking to her phone more than to Riggs. "Mom's blowing it out of proportion."

Not really knowing how to respond to that Riggs offered a simple, noncommittal "Hrmmm."

"I mean, I get why she is, it's just... I mean, sometimes I want to deal with stuff on my own, you know?" She shot him a quick look, but thankfully didn't seem to expect any real input from him. "Ugh, she's going to tell _dad_ , isn't she? And you know what he's like." The sigh that followed that realization was long and loud.

Well, obviously Riana was going through something, although Riggs didn't even have the first clue as to what it was. There was a lot he could try to say to try to help. Things like 'your mom loves you and is only doing what she thinks is best' or 'your dad may be a bit of a dork but he means well' or even 'your parents are doing what they can, you could do a lot worse than the two of them' but he didn't think she really wanted to hear any of that. In fact, he was pretty sure she already _knew_ all that; she hadn't come to him for advice - she was too smart a kid for that, no one in their right mind came to him for advice - she just needed someone to complain to and he was here and fit the bill and he was just fine with that.

"You know," he said once she'd seemed to get some of her frustration out of her system and was back to poking her phone, "I always found there's two things that are guaranteed to put me in a better mood. Now, you may be too young for one of those," he added quickly because he was not going to offer her anything alcoholic. It was against the law and Roger would kill him if he found out, "but I happen to know that there's a couple of packages all sorts of different kinds of fancy chocolates hiding behind the million bags of salt-free rice cakes that Trish keeps buying because she's somehow convinced herself that Rog will actually eat them someday. If I remember right last I checked there were salted caramel mini chocolates, mint coffee crisps, _and_ those chocolate covered pretzels you like so much."

Riana perked up at the news. "The white chocolate drizzle fudge ones? Really?"

"Yep. I dunno what that woman is thinking with those rice cakes though. No way in hell Rog is going to voluntarily eat those. Packing peanuts have more flavor. Unless… you don't think that's all part of her evil plan, do you? Buy all that healthy sh- er- I mean stuff. Buy all that healthy stuff so she can have a place to hide the actually tasty things once she sneaks them into the house? If it is, that's actually kind of brilliant. I'm impressed."

"You might be right. Mom can be pretty sneaky when she puts her mind to it," Riana agreed. "How'd you even find them?"

"I'm a detective, I find stuff for a living. And," he admitted as he heaved himself off the chair and smacked her arm to get her attention before offering her his hand so she could pull herself up. "I might have spotted her acting all shifty and mysterious one day which naturally got me interested in figuring out what she was doing."

"Naturally."

"So I was watching as she pulled, I don't know, five bags of rice cakes out of the cabinet. I thought she was going to toss them and I was going to call her out on it because it was right after RJ gave us all that lecture on waste and the environment and whatever and I figured I'd have something to hold over her head and I can always use some of that kind of ammo when it comes to your mother, but then I realized she was actually hiding something there so once she was gone I snuck a look to find out what it was." He bent down so he could whisper in her ear, "So, what do you say? Want to go empty out your mom's secret stash?"

She grinned and linked her elbow with his. "I think that sounds like a great idea."

In the end they didn't quite eat all of Trish's hidden chocolates, but it was a close thing and Riggs felt guilty enough about it that he made a mental note to pick up some replacement treats soon so Trish didn't kill him when she found them missing. He figured it was worth the expense, by the time they'd polished off the milk Riana was laughing and seemed a lot more at ease. He still didn't know what the problem had been in the first place, he thought maybe he helped a bit so it was a win in his book.

Not surprisingly, Riggs was pretty sure Trish noticed the chocolate switcheroo. A week or so later he'd stopped by to drop off some files for Roger when she cornered him - literally backed him into the corner of the living room - and told him flat out that they needed to talk.

"Ah, excuse me?"

"Like I said, Martin, I'd like to talk to you," she repeated, wagging a finger in his face. Damn, woman, nails like that, she could take an eye out if she wasn't careful.

"Whatever I did, I am very sorry and I promise to never do it again."

Trish sighed at that and shook her head. "Martin, no. I'm going about this all wrong. Look, I was about to start dinner. Will you stay?"

"For a home cooked meal that I don't have to make? Of course."

Turning, she headed into the kitchen, gesturing for him to follow. "Can you peel and chop the carrots?"

"I can." Then, since she was the lawyer and always on his case for using proper words and all he used his most magnanimous tone to add, "And for you, I even will." All in all, the way she thwacked him with the bag of carrots for that wasn't all that surprising. It got a laugh out of her though, so he didn't mind.

She bustled about for a few minutes while he worked- pulling out other stuff from the fridge and pantry before dragging out some pots and pans as well - throwing him sideways glances the whole time. It was weird, she usually wasn't someone who worried about speaking her mind around him.

"Martin," she began just as the baby monitor squawked to life as Harper woke from her nap. Trish looked helplessly at the bowl in front of her, her hands deep into the meatloaf she was in the process of putting together, and sighed.

Before she could do more than pull her hands out of the gloop Riggs, who was nearly done with the carrots, offered a hesitant, "I could get her?"

"Oh, would you? She usually doesn't need to be changed when she takes a late nap, but you should probably check anyway before you bring her down."

"Right. Check the diaper." What had he gotten himself into? "I can do that."

Despite his best intentions some of his apprehension must have shown in his voice because the next thing he knew, Trish had her hands out of the meatloaf again and started wiping them against one another to clean them off somewhat.

"No, you finish with what you're doing, I got her." Riggs rinsed his own hands in the sink and gave them a quick dry with the kitchen towel before heading upstairs at a jog.

Harper was standing up, smacking a stuffed animal against side of the crib, babbling to either it or herself. When she spotted him in the doorway she grinned and held her arms out, ordering him to come get her with an enthusiastic, "Up! Up, Rah, up!"

"Yeah, yeah, you little poop monster, keep your shirt on." He picked her up carefully and gave her a big sniff. "Sorry, my mistake, not a poop monster. And thank you for that, by the way." He still wasn't overly comfortable holding her, but he'd done it enough times by now that he knew how to set her on his hip so she settled against his chest. She had some kind of ninja death grip on the animal though - a purple giraffe, apparently - so he had to adjust his usual grip some, but he made it work.

"Rah! Rah!" Harper was pretty vicious when it came to attacking people with giraffes. Thwacks like her's might not have been the hardest hits he'd ever taken, but still….

"What'd that giraffe ever do to you?" he muttered as he sat her down on the changing table.

"No! Up! Up!"

"Right, yeah, just give me a second." Dodging the swinging giraffe, he undid the diaper enough to give it a cursory feel. "All right,nice and dry. High five, kiddo!" He held his hand out and she smacked it with her free one, just like he'd taught her. "That's my girl!" She held her arms out for him again and babbled something. "Let me guess, you want me to pick you up and carry you downstairs, right?" A quick tickle and squeal later, he had both her and the giraffe back in his arms and was on his way back to the kitchen.

"Delivery of one munchkin, as requested." Riggs had to tighten his grip when Harper spotted Trish and reached out for her mom, dropping her stuffed animal in the process.

"Rah!" she shouted before trying to launch herself off him to follow the giraffe to the floor.

Trish ignored Harper's antics (and Riggs' pain, that kid could _kick_ ) as she slid the meatloaf into the oven. "Can you put her in her chair for me? Once I'm done here I'll get her some juice, that should tied her over until dinner is ready."

Highchairs weren't all that complicated and even though he'd never personally tried to put a kid in one before, he still figured it out pretty quickly. Harper banged the tray after he snapped it into place and shouted "Rah!" again.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Demanding much, are you? I'll get you your giraffe just hold your horses."

Having finished washing her hands, Trish laughed as she grabbed a towel. "The giraffe's name is BooBear and it isn't allowed at the table."

"BooBear? Hate to tell you, kiddo, this guy isn't a bear." Bending down, Riggs picked up the purple monstrosity, examining it. "Are you calling it 'Rah' as a form of protest?"

"She wasn't asking for her giraffe, Martin, she was asking for you," Trish explained as walked behind him to get to the fridge and grab out the juice.

"Me? Why does she have a name for me?"

Trish snapped the lid on the sippy cup and handed it to Harper. "You're a member of the family, of course Harper has a name for you."

Not really having anything to say in response to that, Riggs fidgeted, spinning BooBear in his hands a few times before finding an out of the way spot on the counter to set it.

"That's actually what I was going to talk to you about earlier. I know you and Riana talked last week," Trish began as she started pulling out plates and silverware as passing them to him to put on the table.

Not really thinking that what went on between him and Riana could really have been considered _talking_ Riggs began to explain, "Yeah, sorry if I overstepped. I know it wasn't really my place, but I don't know if—"

Trish interrupted him, holding up her hand. "No, I don't want to know the details. I just wanted to thank you."

"Thank me."

"As her parents sometimes Roger and I are just too close to her to have the perspective we need to help her. It's a relief to know she has someone else to turn to when she needs to."

"Right. Yeah. Um." Riggs didn't really know how to respond to that. He hadn't really done anything, but if it had helped…. "Glad I could be there for her."

"That said," Trish's voice got hard and serious as she crossed her arms and glared at him, "You touch my chocolates again and you are a dead man."

"Not to self: no touching the chocolates."

"And I _will_ be moving where I store them and you will _not_ make any attempt to find their new location, will you?"

"Wouldn't dream of it."

She stood there for a moment longer, silently judging him, before Harper interrupted by shouting "Mah!" and banging her cup against the chair a few times.

"Oh, honey, sorry." Trish unlatched and removed the tray table before scooping Harper up. "Martin, can you keep her occupied for a few minutes so I can finish up in here? There's a basket of her books next to the couch."

"Uh, yeah, sure. I guess I can do that. Come here, munchkin, let's see if we can find that book about the fishies. I still say that Dr. Seuss was smoking something when he wrote it though. Fish driving cars? Really?" Riggs joked, grabbing Harper and heading into the living room, ignoring Trish's exasperated huff on his way.


End file.
